Some music bloggers communicate with each other. We share ideas, likes and dislikes about life in the blogosphere. This post is about some major dislikes. Particularly, the way artists go about getting their music featured on these blogs. This is important because these issues could very well be the reason why some never get their music posted. So I present to you these 5 music blogger’s pet peeves…
1. Overaggressive follow-ups
“Did you get my music? I sent you music. Did you get it? Yo, I sent my music last week. Let me know if you got it.”
Now I believe in a certain measure of persistence, but some artists can go way overboard and become annoying with some tactics they use to push their music. Most bloggers explain clearly on their sites how they want music sent to them. Most of them don’t want music pushed to them on Twitter or their personal Facebook profile.
Don’t take it personal if these bloggers ignore your Twitter mentions asking them if they’ve recieved your music. They’ve gotten tired of addressing it. Don’t do this unless you feel you’ve built up a rapport with them already. Some of these bloggers may get 100 submissions per day. If your email didn’t get bounced back to you, they have it. I can’t speak for other bloggers, but I personally listen to every submission, and nothing upsets me more than to finally listen to an artist’s music, who has been sending me follow up emails everyday, and find out that it sounds like crap. Overaggressive follow ups can put an added pressure and a higher expectation for your music to sound extraordinary when the blogger finally does listen to it. So take a chill pill, relax, and be patient.
2. Not Following Directions
A lot a music doesn’t get posted simply because the submitter didn’t follow directions. There’s no one way that bloggers like music submissions sent to them. It varies. But that info is usually displayed somewhere on their blog. Most will accept a hassle free link to download your music. Z-share, as delivery method, sucks compared to all of the other, much better, options out there, but some bloggers will take their links. The ads on Z-share just annoy the hell out of me. I personally like Mp3s or video singles, but if you want some link alternatives, use Box.net or Bandcamp.
Also most bloggers don’t want your entire mixtape or album unless they ask for it. They just want a the single. Going through your entire project to find a single to post is time consuming. Make the process easier for them by choosing a single you want posted separate from the link of the entire album download.
3. The Drive-by Artist
This is the artist that is persistent about getting posted on your blog and then does nothing to promote the post. Bloggers like traffic and exposure to new readers and they assume that artists who are posted on their sites would at least promote themselves. Strangely enough, this is not always the case.
Also a great way to build a connection with a blogger is by joining the community of the blog and occasionally posting comments on articles or re-tweeting them when the blogger sends them out. These things get noticed more often then you might think, and it makes you more familiar to not only the blogger, but the readers as well.
4. The Comment Spammer
Taking it upon yourself to just drop links to your music, in the comment discussion thread, without saying anything about the topic being discussed, is a sure way get off to a bad start with most bloggers. It’s never effective.
5. The Just Plain Lazy
Another question I toften get is: “How do I send you music?” I stopped responding to this because if you do just the tiniest bit of searching, you can find the answer to that question. This is true for most music blogs. Navigate the site first before you ask a blogger this question. I can’t tell you how many times I get artists who use my MUSIC SUBMISSION FORM to ask me this question. Those artists need to be removed from the gene pool. Don’t have babies!!
